Anime
The anime adaptation was produced by Toei Animation and directed by Daisuke Nishio. A sequel was announced titled "The File of Young Kindaichi Returns" produced by Toei Animation and directed by Yutaka Tsuchida. A second season was announced titled "The File of Young Kindaichi Returns 2nd Season" produced by Toei Animation and directed by Yoko Ikeda. KINDAICHI CASE FILES ANIME CASES SEVEN MYSTERIES OF THE SCHOOL (Also known as SMOKE AND MIRRORS) ANIME CASE 1; EPISODES 1-3 The Seven Mysteries of Fudo High is a set of curses said to revolve around mysterious deaths and disappearances at the north campus building of Fudo High. SIX MYSTERIES: * Abandoned Biology lab One evening, a teacher told his female student to change a light bulb at night using a candle as the only source of light. She lost her balance and hanged herself with a part of her uniform. When the professor came to check on her, he only found hanging body illuminated by the candlelight. Unexplainable events happened some time later. When the Biology Lab lost power, a professor that was grading papers lit a candle and saw the same hanging body from before. As soon as the power was back on, the body disappeared. ;* The Spooky Printing Room In the old printing room, a student accidentally cut off his hand with the paper-cutting machine. He was rushed to the hospital but died at arrival. The school and the police tried to find the severed hand but could never find it. Ever since, it is said that people can hear the sound of a boy crying in pain and see the severed hand crawling around. ;* Bloody Fountain A student drowned in the fountain and it became a fountain of blood. ;* Legend of the Evil Thirteen Steps A student was once looking for his friend in the old campus building. As he went down the stairs, he knew that they were supposed be twelve steps. As soon as he reaches the last step, he counted thirteen and found his friend dead. ;* The Ginkgo Tree There was once a student who was being bullied and ended up hanging himself at a Ginkgo with a manji engraved on its bark. It is said once in a while the hanging body reappears and disappears at night. * Goddess of Wisdom Once, a statue of a Goddess tumbled down from a bookshelf in the library onto a student's head and he died instantly. Ever now and then, the crushed body is said to reappear at night covered in blood. Kindaichi, along with Miyuki, is invited to join the Mystery club by the club president Ruiko Sakuragi and investigate the real truth behind the seven mysteries evolving around the old school building. Only six of the mysteries are known and it is rumoured that the one who finds about the seventh mystery will die immediately. The principal receives a threatening letter from somebody addressing himself as "Afterschool Conjurer" to stop the demolition of the old school building. One night, Ruiko was staying late at school investigating about the seven mysteries when an earthquake occurs. Ruiko discovers something which leads her to the truth of the mysteries. She calls up Kindaichi and the other members of the mystery club and asks them to come to school in order to show her new findings. While searching for Ruiko along with the security in-charge, Kindaichi sees the hanging corpse of Ruiko in the biology room and the so-called "Afterschool Conjurer" (wearing a mask and black clothes) performing the death ritual by drawing a pattern on ground and lighting several candles. Kindaichi and the security person run to the biology room in the old building which hardly takes three minutes but to their utter shock, find that the corpse had disappeared along with all the arrangements and the conjurer exactly like the first mystery. Puzzled over this instant disappearance, everybody goes home. Next day, when they come to school, they find Ruiko's hanging corpse in the biology room along with the remnants of the death ritual - a pattern on the ground and wax from burnt candles. Ruiko had left a code in the computer. Another Mystery club member who solves Ruiko's code is also murdered before he can declare his findings. His corpse is found in the printing room exactly in the same way as in the second mystery. As Kindaichi delves deeper, he comes to know that about ten years ago, girl had disappeared from the old school building while investigating the mysteries of the school. Also Kindaichi learns that the old school building was originally the workroom of a pharmaceutical company. After shifting their workroom to another place, they donated this place to Fudo High School. While snooping around, Miyuki takes off a poster from the wall of a room and discovers a dark secret. But before she can tell anyone, she is attacked by the culprit. When Miyuki goes missing, Kindaichi deduces that she might have been attacked and taken to the place of the third mystery, the bloody fountain. Miyuki is saved by Kindaichi in time but being seriously injured, she is hospitalised. Miyuki tells Kindaichi about her discovery. With the newly gained information, Kindaichi investigates further and solves all the mysteries involved in the case. He gathers all the persons involved in order to uncover the real identity of the "Afterschool Conjurer". In reality, these are fabrications created by the physics teacher of the school, who used to be a scientist for the pharmaceutical company. Once, the company acquired six volunteers/test subjects, but their experiment failed, resulting in their death. Panicked, the researchers decided to hide their bodies, but the research building was converted to the school campus of Fudo High. So, they embedded the bodies in numerous places around the school buildings, and spread horror stories about the locations of the bodies, hoping it would be enough to drive the students and teachers away from those places. A member was sent to the school as a teacher to make sure that the bodies aren't found. So there were originally six mysteries as there were six dead bodies. The last legend was created ten years before this story, when a girl who knew too much was killed by the teacher. Just as before, her body was embedded into a wall in a class-room, and a rumour was spread about the seventh mystery- that the person who finds the seventh mystery will be put to death. The Seven mysteries were revived when the school wanted to tear down the old building, and fearing exposure of the bodies, the teacher sent a threatening letter to the principal under the guise of "Afterschool Conjurer." Unfortunately, the Mystery Club, led by Ruiko Sakuragi, decided to investigate the seven mysteries. Ruiko stayed late at school trying to find more on the seven mysteries. However, an earthquake occured and the corpse of the missing girl from ten years emanated from the walls. The teacher, who was keeping a watch on the Mystery Club, saw it and murdered Ruiko. The teacher placed the corpse back again inside the walls but couldn't hide the large hole exposing the corpse. So he placed a poster over it to cover it. The other Mystery Club member was killed by the teacher when he tried to take the poster off. He also attempted to kill Miyuki for the same reason but failed. The code left by Ruiko actually meant "The bones are hidden in the walls". As for the trick used for instant disappearance of the corpse, it was based on physics' simple theory of reflection. The biology room was directly visible from the new school building but the physics lab was not. Ruiko's corpse was initially hung and the whole elaborate setup was made in the physics lab. Then the teacher placed a huge mirror diagonally in the biology room and due to the positioning of the two rooms, the scene from the physics lab was reflected in the in the biology room. From the new school building Kindaichi and company thought that the setup was in biology room and were thus tricked. The three minutes which they took to rush to the biology room, were enough to take away and hide the mirror. After everybody left the campus, the culprit redid the whole arrangement in the biology room to be found the next morning. After the truth of the case is revealed by Kindaichi, the security officer impulsively stabs the murderer and and reveals himself to be the father of the girl who disappeared ten years ago from the school. He had taken this job in the school in order to find out the truth. The case ends with memorial service being held for the deceased. 'BROKEN HEART LAKE MURDER CASE' ANIME CASE 2; EPISODES 4-6 'WAX DOLL CASTLE MURDER CASE' ANIME CASE 3; EPISODES 6-9 'MURDER BY GENTLEMAN THIEF CASE' ANIME CASE 4; EPISODES 10-12 'TREASURE ISLAND MURDER CASE' ANIME CASE 4; EPISODES 13-15 'DEVIL'S SUITE MURDER CASE' ANIME CASE 6; EPISODES 16-17 Kindaichi and Miyuki are requested by an orchestra manager Yuka Yamane, who happened to be Miyuki's acquaintance from her piano classes, to help her search for the score-sheets of Devil's Suite, the last work of famous musician late Shuichirou Midou. Amidst very bad weather, the three of them head off to the villa which used to be Shichirou's workplace for the last six months before his death. In the car, they listen to the tape where the lyrics of Devil's Suite were recorded in the form of poems (i.e., without the music) by Shuichirou. There was apparently no written version of the lyrics. On reaching the villa, they find the dead body of Michael Henry, a member of the orchestra. The most puzzling part of the death was that the scene exactly resembled the first verse of Devil's Suite with the victim Michael even holding a key in his hand just as in the poem. The police is called but they can't reach the crime scene due to a terrible landslide. Thus Kindaichi and Miyuki end up confined to the villa with other six people - three members of the Tatou Philharmonic Orchestra: Natsuoka, Yurie Kazekura and Arisa Kure, orchestra manager Yuka Yamane, late Shuichirou's assistant Tsubaki and Superintendent Akechi (who was also invited by Yuka to search for the score-sheets). When Akechi begins to question the orchestra members who were supposed to inherit late Shuichirou's fortunes (and thus had a motive to kill Michael Henry), Yurie Kazekura gets annoyed and storms out. Before dinner Yuka finds another dead body - this time of Yurie Kazekura - exactly imitating the Devil's Suite second verse with the victim wearing a knight's helmet, holding a spinning top in her hand and another top on the ground beside the body. Akechi and Kindaichi conclude that the murderer is someone inside the house since all the windows and doors of the villa were perfectly locked from inside. Everybody in the villa became a suspect as nobody had a solid alibi. In Natsuoka's room, Akechi finds a sheet with the lyrics of Devil's Suite written on it. Akechi gives the sheet to Kindaichi and challenges him to solve the mystery. Kindaichi feels uneasy when he considers the possibility of a third murder since the Devil's Suite had three verses. He feels that the key to finding the culprit lies in solving the mystery as to why the murders were imitated from Devil's Suite. Meanwhile Arisa Kure feels unwell and is taken care of by Tsubaki. Kindaichi learns that Tsubaki is the foster father of the orphan Arisa and that Arisa hated Shuichirou Midou for he was too strict with her violin lessons - so much so that he used to hit her even on the slightest mistake. Next morning, while practicing violin in her room, Arisa screams out suddenly. Everyone rushes to her room to find her wounded by an arrow just like in the third verse of Devil's Suite. But thankfully, the wound is not fatal and she is given first aid. The bow is found in Natsuoka's room. Everybody accuses him but Kindaichi says otherwise and shows he lyrics sheet of Devil's Suite. He tells that though the second victim Yurie Kazekura with a top in her hand and another top on the ground, the kanji in the second verse of Devil's Suite is not for "Spinning top" but for the "knight of the chessboard". The killer, who wanted to show that the murders were following the Devil's Suite verses, would not have made this grave mistake had he read the lyrics sheet. So the culprit is one of those who heard the lyrics tape but did not read the sheet as "spinning top" and "knight of the chessboard" sound the same in Japanese. This rules out Natsuoka as he was the only suspect who had read the lyrics prior to the murder ( the sheet was found in his room). Kindaichi investigates and finds a tape in Arisa's room where she was attacked while practicing. Also he comes to know that Michael Henry was a French. This gives him a sudden idea and he looks up the French dictionary. Akechi confronts Natsuoka after finding in his room the score-sheets of Devil's Suite with bloodstains on them. Natsuoka confesses that he stole the score-sheets in order to publish them under his own name but denies having committed any murder. Kindaichi supports his claim and reveals the truth that the actual murderer is Arisa Kure. Michael was not made to hold the key in order to resemble the verse but he himself grabbed onto the key to leave his dying message in French, his mother tongue. "Key" is called "Cĺe" in French whose Japanese pronunciation is "Kure", thus pointing to killer Arisa Kure.It was just a coincidence that the scene matched with the first verse and this chance coincidence gave Arisa the idea to imitate the second verse for the second murder to divert everyone's attention from the dying message - the key. But as she hadn't read the actual lyrics, she confused "knight of chess" with "spinning top". The tape found in her room was further proof of her culpability. The tap contained recordings of Arisa's practice sessions. While she played the tape, she injured herself to give the impression that she was attacked while practicing. Tsubaki had perhaps noticed the trick and in order to cover for her, he hid the bow in Natsuoka's room. After Kindaichi revealed all the tricks to this case, Tsubaki vehemently opposes him and takes the whole blame upon himself. He claims that he was the one who murdered Michael and Yurie and he also injured Arisa to complete all the three verses. Arisa stares at him in astonishment and Akechi wonders why he is protecting Arisa to that extent. This is when Kindaichi declares that Tsubaki, being forever loyal to the late Shuichirou Midou, is now trying to protect Arisa, Shuichirou's daughter. Kindaichi had deduced this from the stark resemblance of Arisa with Shuichirou Midou in his portrait. This revelation takes everyone, including the unaware Arisa herself, by surprise. Finally, Tsubaki admits the truth of Kindaichi's deductions. Arisa doesn't want to believe the truth that the person she had always hated was in reality her father. After being exposed, Arisa attempts to commit suicide. Kindaichi and Tsubaki manage to save her and convince her to repent for her guilt and to live on. Arisa confesses that she didn't intend to kill Michael but when she caught him stealing Devil Suite's score-sheets only for himself, she got furious and tried to snatch away the sheets from him. The scuffle ended in Michael falling down the stairs and eventually dying. When Yurie, who witnessed this incident, kept on blackmailing her, she decided to kill Yurie. Akechi requests Arisa to play her father's last composition - Devil's Suite- to which she concedes. The episode ends with Arisa being taken away by the police after playing the beautiful piece which was composed by Shuichirou only for his daughter Arisa - the first verse starts with 'A', the second verse starts with 'Ri' and the third one starts with 'Sa'. Category:Media